DEVOTED TO AGBIGULTUBB AN"D ITS KITfDUBS) ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. XI. 



BOSTON, FEBRUARY, 1859. 



NO. 2. 



JOEL NOURSE, Proprietor. 

 Office. ..13 Commercial St. 



SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, ) Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, \ Editors. 



CALSIfDAB FOR FEBRUARY. 



"Wide o'er hU northern realm stern winter reigns 



A conquering tyrant ; and his icy chains 



Are on the streams that lately danced along 



To the glad music of their own sweet song. 



The brave old oak, where through the summer days 



Sported the birds and carolled forth their lays, 



Stripped of its foliage by the northern gale, 



Waves its dark arms aloft, and seems to wail 



Unto the heedless blast that sweeps the snowy vale." 



^ EBUUAEY once more 

 — the last of the 

 winter months, 

 and a short one, 

 too. The sun is 

 ah'eady coming 

 back from its 

 southern tour, and 

 the visibly length- 

 ening days give us 

 a premonition of 

 bpring, though 

 till the latter part 

 of the month this 

 is about all the 

 sign of its coming. 

 It requires a 

 good deal of faith 

 to look out on the snow- 

 covered landscape, and realize 

 >\hat seeiets Nature keeps 

 locked up from our sight. — 

 "Every season," says Beecher, in his "Life 

 Thoughts," "every season forms itself a year in 

 advance. The coming summer lays out her work 

 during the autumn, and buds and roots are fore- 

 spoken. Ten million roots are pumping in the 

 streets ; do you hear them ? Ten million buds 

 are forming in the axils of the leaves ; do you 

 hear the sound of the saw or the hammer ? All 

 next summer is at work in the world, but it is 

 unseen by us." 



When w» think how much of our time and la- 

 bor are required merely to protect oui'selves from 



the cold — to warm our houses and provide com- 

 fortable clothing, we are almost inclined to envy 

 the inhabitants of a less rigorous climate. But 

 even in this we may see the law of compensation. 

 Every one knows that energy, forethought, en- 

 terprise, industry, and many kindred virtues, are 

 especially the growth of a cold latitude. Doubt- 

 less the direct influence of a bracing atmosphere 

 has much to do with this, but we may find still 

 other causes. When the choice lies between 

 freezing and working, most men will work. 

 When a man knows that for six months of the 

 year he must look out upon a barren world, he- 

 will, from necessity, employ the other six months- 

 in providing for this emergency. Hence he ac- 

 quires habits of forethought. 



Again, there seems to be a law of nature tha-t- 

 by overcoming obstacles, we become stronger, 

 morally, intellectually and physically, and that 

 what we gain by hard labor, we value propor- 

 tionally. It is the son who has a fortune left him 

 who becomes a spendthrift, not the father, who 

 by slow and constant toil, accumulates that forr 

 tune. It is the young man, who, by earnest and 

 constant effort, acquires an education, who be- 

 comes a Franklin or a Webster, and not, usually, 

 the oflspring of wealthy parents, who stand ready 

 to hold him up at every step. The one knows he 

 has the battle to fight for himself, so he puts 

 his armor on. The other is born to wealth, po- 

 sition, friends — and there is nothing to call forth 

 his energy — and so he lacks that strength of 

 character which is of more real value than any- 

 thing he can inherit. 



Success is not to be won by proxy. "Serve 

 yourself would you be well served," is an excel- 

 lent adage. We all remember the fate of Miles 

 Standish in his wooing, because he, for the time, 

 forgot his own motto ! 



In our cold, hilly, sterile New England, we 

 must "do or die" — but then the home which we 

 found "upon a roek," to stand against storm and 



